RP:Midnight at the Library
Dawn awoke with a start; a cold sweat covered her body. The nightmares were less frequent these days but tonight with their, not exactly, victory and having a real chance to sleep, if just for a night, it had been a night of being woken up over and over again for the blonde haired woman.
The real issue being that, while Dawn frequently cared for others, she had ignored herself. Taking care of others gave her a focus; she could shove her own issues to the back of her mind with that focus. She tried, but in the end there was little more she could think of to do for anyone at the moment.
Her last dream had been the worst: a man with no face, dark clothing, sucking her mother and brother into a vortex. She didn't need to, yet she started to call them. Only to be stopped by memories of what happened the last time.
She needed something to do. Something to focus on. Something that would get that imagine out of her mind.
The pile of books on her desk beckoned her. So, did coffee and just not being in this room any longer. Down the hall, she went, with a backpack and arms filled. She had hours to kill.
A trip to the cafeteria area was called for. It was always open and coffee was always on. As she walked Dawn wondered how many mages worked late nights, early mornings, or ignored the diurnal cycle altogether.
Thud!
Books and backpack hit the table. Next came making herself coffee and sitting down. All the while looking around her to find … nothing … just extreme quiet. Too quiet. Every sound made her jump a little. Maybe headphones attached to music would have helped but she was too paranoid to think of blocking out the small, insignificant sounds.
Opening up 4 books and a notebook, she began to look at them in a manner that most people would find impossible. From one book to the next, scribbling notes she probably didn't need, all the while being jumpy and looking up every few moments. All the while never losing track of what she was doing.
“What’chall studyin’?” came a deep, friendly voice behind her.
Books entitled Liber Noctis by Alessandro Cagliostro, Unaussprechlichen Kulten by Von Junzt, Church of the Yellow King and other books surrounded the woman. She had just looked down from another glance around, swearing there was no one there.
A start, a slight jump and her heart now in her throat. She turned to see a man behind her. It took her a moment but she caught her breath. After all, Dawn had become good at hiding her paranoia.
"Nyx. Well, the Cult of Nyx."
An elderly janitor entered the cafeteria, his dark skin grayed with years of working indoors. His smile was genuine though the few teeth visible were not. "When y'all done just let me know and I'll run those book back t'the library."
Thank you," Dawn said quietly.
It was sticking her as odd that she hadn't noticed this man before.
"Have you worked at the Chantry long?" It seemed like he might have been here forever. "I'm Dawn, by the way."
He seemed friendly, she was at the chantry so he was probably safe and Dawn never looked down on anyone.
Her own upbringing had been very blue collar. Something that surprised many people. Truth was without a scholarship she never would have made it to Duke.
"Billy," Billy replied. "Billy Wyse. That’d be, with a 'y' 'cause no one'd accuse me a being smart and as to how long I've been here, well, that would depend. What year's it outside? I ain't left the Chantry in a loong time."
A friendly smile met the man's words. Dawn wasn't surprised that he hadn't left the Chantry in a while. She was confused as to how he was here in the first place. Was it rude to ask if he was magical? Probably.
"2017," she replied, though the year was drawing to a close.
He looked over Dawn's book choices. "'Nameless Cults?' Nothin' good ever came o' that book. Nothin'. I can't e'en read German an' I know that much. What else you got?"
She paused for a moment, only because she was still a little thrown. "Oh, I'm also reading Church of The Yellow King and Liber Noctis. Not mention the books she had piled up next to her but she wasn't reading those at the moment. Currently, her studying was fixed on The Cult of Nyx and what little information she could find about them.
“Liber Noctis," Billy said with a grin. "Book a' the Sacred Night. Ya' gotta be careful with Cagliostro. He liked the sound of his own voice and the feel o' other folks' money. 'Times he wrote things that he thought just sounded good, or maybe would sell.”
He turned his head to look at the other book spines. “'Noctis' is pretty good, but you might wanna cite a second source if the Hermetics gonna grade it. I ain't read ‘bout the Yellow King but if your lookin' for the Sign there's a chapter on it in Morton's Glyphs and Wards. It's in the Hermetic Stacks, ‘cept when it decides to sneak out."
Dawn looked at the Janitor quizzically. It seemed as Billy knew more than people gave him credit for. Her mind went briefly to her father, long missing from her life. He had known things. He had been far more intelligent than people knew. Dawn remembered though how they use to discuss the constellations or the parts of the nervous system or whatever else her mind could come up with to talk about with him. Hours on hours, when he was able, of talking about whatever she wanted. If he didn't know he looked it up, they spent a lot of time at the library.
Her father hadn't known, the night he left, that she was awake but she had felt the kiss on her forehead and heard his words.
Never forget. You are special.
She wondered now if he had known something; something more than he had let on.
However, that had been long ago and right now there were more pressing matters at hand. She had a feeling that making friends with the janitor might be beneficial.
"I haven't gotten to 'The Yellow Sign' yet." Pointing to book entitled The Yellow King. She knew it was in there, having skimmed through but not much else about it, for the moment anyway.
It sounds like you've read a great deal." She paused. "Do you have a few moments? I'd like to discuss what you know. It'd really help me out." Hoping that he could shed some light on the subject matter. If not, then maybe she could have a way to get into the forbidden stacks, something, she really wanted.
"Why sure," Billy said.
He sat down slowly. Dawn noticed his obvious struggle, even as other parts of her diagnosed his obvious problems: osteoarthritis in both knees, bursitis in the hips and a left ankle that seemed oddly turned, like it had been broken and never healed properly. She saw his pain and wanted to fix it even as she realized that given where they were if he could be helped, it would have already happened.
Once seated, Billy gave Dawn a smile that seemed oblivious to his pain. “So I know a little 'bout a lot. What'cha lookin' for?"
"Well, what do you know about the Cult of Nyx?" Maybe, he had read something that would be of use.
"Nyx?," Billy said scratching an eyebrow with a long, arthritic finger. "Primordial night god, right? Greek? Kinda mother a' monsters thing goin on?"
“That would be the one." Dawn replied. "But there seems to very little information on them from what I've read so far."
He pointed at the books. "Ah, that's how come you gots Cagliostro, but Cult of the Yellow King? You sure?"
"Not really. I've not gotten that far in Cult of the Yellow King, yet." She paused, trying to get a grasp of what the man knew and how he could possibly help her. "Are there any books that I'm missing? I figured there might be more in the forbidden stacks."
"There's lots on Nyx and her kids in the mythology and religion section. In Cagliostro too, I'spose. 'Yellow King was one'a those Dye-o-ni-shen cults way back good-ol'-bad-ol' days when magefolk could do whatever they wanted. Don' really know too much about them. Jus' what I flip through when I'se restocking the shelves."
"Really, anything you could tell me would be helpful." Dawn was focused on learning more about them.
She was convinced that the only way for them to not be a problem would be to, somehow, get rid of the cult but that might not be possible.
"I wish I could get into the Locked Stacks; there is probably a lot of information in there." This was more of a feeling him out about those stacks instead of directly asking him to let her in.
"Hey look, I got some reshevin' to do in the Hermetic library and I could sure use the cumpny. You wanna go?"
Dawn somehow managed to hold back the excitement in her voice.
"Sure. Thanks." She grabbed her books and followed Billy out of the cafeteria.
They made rounds through the chantry stopping at all the book drops. By the time this was completed Dawn had seen numerous hallways and passages that she’d never noticed before. During their walk Billy kept of a constant if fanciful babble about the history of the various buildings and denizens
During a particularly long story about the history of the hallway between rectory and the dormitory Dawn drifted into a slumber even as she walked. When she shook awake she found herself in an unknown hallway with Billy nowhere to be found.
Dawn made mental notes of every passage way, every nook. It might come in handy some time to know how to get around these passages. She wasn't questioning if she could find them again; it was more a question of why she hadn't been down these hallways before. Then again, she and the group had been busy with other things.
Billy's stories were the kind that you'd expect from someone who had been some place for a long time. Some were more interesting that others but they all found their way into Dawn's memories.
She was certain she was tracking everything perfectly right up to the moment where she found herself in an ornate, if empty corridor. Neither direction looked promising.
Wait...what? Dawn couldn't figure out what had just happened. Had she fallen asleep, if so then how did she get....where was she? Where was Billy? Her eyes glanced around, her heart began to race, then to hear Billy's voice. A quiet breath left her.
The secret hallway, the door that might or might not appear, the skeleton key it was all right out of a Harry Potter book. Dawn fiddled with her cross, listening for a moment but her Dove was suspiciously quiet about this whole thing. In silent, a quick prayer for giving what she needed was thought. She started walking, then running in the direction that she thought was forward, but down the corridor and around some corners there was neither intersections, nor doors.
She was near panic when Billy found her a few minutes later. “Jus’ keep close, OK?,” he chastised. “The library don’ always wanna be found.”
They went back the way they came and close to where she had discovered herself lost, there stood a large wooden door with an old-fashioned skeleton key lock. Dawn knew this was a sign, she was meant to go into those stacks, there was something there that she needed to know. The door, just as easily, might not have appeared. In which case, she would have understood that was God's way of telling her.
Billy paused at the door. “Now, I gotta get to putting the books back. Nyx is prolly in the ‘Comparative religion and Ancient threat’ section. 10 rows down on the left. Eastern Mediterranean will be on the third shelf.”
Giving a nod to Billy, she made her way past rows and rows of books, stopping only briefly to try to recall the different sections. Finally, coming across the section that said Comparative Religion and Ancient Threat.
The first thing that Dawn noticed was that not all the shelves were the same length. They looked the same at a distance, but as you checked the spines the shelf would shorten or lengthen depending on the number of volumes it needed to hold based on the topic you were thinking about.
Initially, the shelf seemed to stretch for many yards but as she concentrated on Nyx and then the cult of Nyx, it got smaller and smaller until it held a mere 4 books. That she pulled and brought to one of the study carrels.
What seemed like minutes later, Billy reappeared. “We gotta go. You find whats you were looking for?”
As Dawn gathered her notes, she was surprised at how little information she found.
There was plenty on Nyx as the Greek incarnation of Night and on her numerous and mostly dreaded children. Also, there’s information on ceremonies associated with Nyx.
However, the Cult of Nyx was only tangentially associated with the Goddess of Night.
Founded around 1000 BC in Ionia by a mage named Adrastea, the Cult originally had the stated goal of uniting “The Tribes of Night,” a term is loosely stated but the context seemed to include Mages, Vamps, Fae, Garou, unicorns and other Supernatural types all in one big happy club. They were "Dionysian" in outlook rejecting the rationalism that was on the rise in Greece and they appear to have been strongest during and just after the Trojan War.
Around the time of Aristotle (350 BC), a splinter faction formed called at times "The Yellow Brotherhood" or the "Cult of the Yellow King." Initially, the Yellow King may have been a different Night God with an even more negative outlook. The Yellow Brotherhood was also associated with a very ancient and powerful warding symbol that became known as "The Yellow Sign"
Cult and Brotherhood had an ill-defined falling out around 200 BC with the Brotherhood later associated with the Illuminati in the Middle Ages and continuing to this day as a group of mercenary Supernatural Assassins who seem to pursue hidden goals that may be related to the end of the world.
The Cult begins to disappear from the historical records after the rise of Rome. No direct explanation was given but Tacitus opined at length on the inevitability of the group’s demise due to the innate differences between the groups brought together by Cult, the natural decline of such creatures and internecine struggles within the group and with the Brotherhood.
One of the most recent items, a handwritten tract attributed to Elymas Bariesu and dated around 1000 AD indicated that 3-eyed Vampires were becoming dominant within the group and that the group itself had gone into hiding somewhere awaiting a prophesy, but the specifics are lacking.
As Dawn gathered her notes, Billy re-shelved the books. “Just let me know when you want to come back,” he said with a smile. “Always good to have someone to talk to.”
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